Catching Fire Jaguars wideout Jimmy Smith, having rekindled a career that was near extinction, has developed into a receiver nonpareil

A great athlete is said to make his game look easy, butJacksonville Jaguars wideout Jimmy Smith takes that truism toanother level. Known at different points of his life as Silk andJ-Smooth, Smith plays defensive backs like suckers, loafingthrough routes to lull them to sleep before bursting into theclear, which he did often enough last season to lead the NFL with116 catches.

Yet Smith's path off the field has been anything but easy. Hecame so close to having his football dreams dashed--and, for a fewscary days, to losing his life--that he vows he never performs oncruise control, even though at times he may appear to. "I'm ascrapper at heart because of all I've been through, but you mightnot pick up on that from watching me," Smith says. "I make itlook like I'm not putting much effort into what I'm doing. Then,before the guy covering me realizes it, I'm in and out of myroute, and he's trying to recover."

For two months Smith has been doing some recovering of his own.He's still smarting from his subpar performance in the Jaguars'33-14 AFC Championship Game loss to the Tennessee Titans. Thoughthe favored Jaguars held a four-point lead at halftime of thatgame, they had squandered one scoring opportunity and fumbled alate second-quarter punt that set up a Titans field goal. Duringthe intermission their locker room degenerated into a salty swirlof teammate bashing, with the normally genial Smith doing hisshare of squawking. "I remember Coach [Tom] Coughlin screaming,'Hey, keep your poise. Stop yelling at each other, because we'relosing it here,'" Smith says. "He was right. We'd blown ourchance to put them away, and they're too dangerous to mess with.After that I was pressing, trying to carry the team."

Hampered by constant double coverage ordered up by Tennesseecoach Jeff Fisher, who calls the 31-year-old Smith "the bestreceiver in football," Smith had a disastrous second half. Hemisjudged and pulled up short on a long pass from Mark Brunelland dropped two other balls, and the Titans ran off 23 unansweredpoints to earn their first trip to the Super Bowl. Smith says he"cried for a week. It was like a bad nightmare that spilled overinto real life."

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He quickly snapped out of it, buoyed in part by the next trip hetook--to Hawaii, for the Pro Bowl, where he caught eight passesfor 119 yards and three touchdowns--and by a resilience developedduring his jagged journey to NFL prominence. After starring atJackson State, the 6'1", 200-pound Smith was selected in thesecond round of the 1992 draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He figuredhe would fit in perfectly opposite star wideout Michael Irvin,but life for J-Smooth, as he is known by his Jaguars teammates,was anything but. Smith was burdened by injury and illness, firstsuffering a broken leg that limited him to seven uneventful gamesduring his rookie year and then, in the summer of '93, enduring alife-threatening infection that stemmed from appendicitis.

After complaining of abdominal pain, Smith was rushed to a Dallashospital, where his appendix was removed. He went home the nextday, but when the pain returned and his fever shot up, hereturned to the hospital two days later. Doctors determined thatSmith's appendix may have leaked and that he had pockets of pusin his stomach. The abscesses were treated with drugs, andsurgery was performed to repair a tear in his intestines. Jimmy'sparents--his mother, Etta, a retired Jackson, Miss., schooladministrator who used to sprint jubilantly down the sidelinealongside her son during his Pop Warner touchdown runs, and hisfather, also named Jimmy, the owner of a trucking company who hada brief stint as a tight end with the Cincinnati Bengals in1968--feared the worst. "He was just melting away," Etta says."The night before the second surgery, a medical technician cameinto the room after seeing the lab work and gave me a Biblescripture. He said, 'Mrs. Smith, I want you to read this becauseI think God will hear a mother's prayer.'"

The son pulled through, but his saga was far from over. Aftermore than three weeks in the hospital, he returned to his townhouse wearing a colostomy bag, and one doctor told him, "There'sa chance you could have this the rest of your life." Smith neededthe bag for only three months, during which he suffered bloodclots, bed sores and a 30-pound weight loss.

Soon thereafter Smith made one heck of an enemy: his boss. At thestart of the 1993 season Cowboys owner Jerry Jones placed Smithon the reserve/nonfootball-injury list, meaning Dallas wasn'tobligated to pay his $350,000 salary. Smith filed a grievancethrough the NFL Players Association, which claimed a hit he hadtaken in an exhibition game had contributed to the appendicitisand that he hadn't received adequate treatment from the team whenthe symptoms of the condition appeared. In December of that yearan arbitrator ruled that the appendicitis was football-related,and Smith received his salary and a playoff share.

"I understood it from Jerry's point of view as a businessman, butI felt it was adding insult to injury," Smith says. "What's$350,000 to him? He had a team of lawyers, some of the best inthe country, and I'm sure he spent more than $350,000 in legalfees. You don't beat Jerry Jones and get away with it."

In July 1994 Jones, who declined comment about the episode,called Smith into his office and told him he'd be released if hedidn't take a pay cut. Smith, figuring he was doomed in Dallasanyway, refused, ending his Cowboys career with two Super Bowlrings and no catches. Also at that meeting was coach BarrySwitzer, who had taken over four months earlier. Recalls Smith,"Barry said, 'I hear they call you Silk [a nickname from highschool]. I haven't seen that yet.' Half of me wanted to punchhim, and the other half wanted to bust out laughing."

There were more slights to come. The Philadelphia Eagles signedSmith eight days after his release, and though he was a specialteams standout in the preseason, he was waived a day after thefinal roster cutdown. Veteran cornerback Mark McMillian, who waswith the Eagles then, was one of many players stunned by themove. "Jimmy was a raw talent, but he was by far the best pureathlete we had," McMillian says.

Smith became angry, then depressed. He dreaded returning home toJackson and having to answer questions about his future. SaysIsaac Morehouse, Smith's friend and college teammate, "Evenpeople in Jackson who were supposed to be cool with him startedacting like he was done."

Instead, Smith returned to Dallas and moved in with SandraCoverson, whom he had begun dating the previous fall. WhileCoverson spent her days working at a bank, Smith sat aroundwatching TV and hoping to get picked up by one of the teams thathad expressed interest in him. But none of those teams--theArizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs or NewEngland Patriots--called, and Smith sat out the '94 season. In themeantime Sandra, whom Smith has since married, gave him householdchores to do. "She'd point to two baskets in the corner of theroom and say, 'This is hot, and this is cold. Wash and fold thembefore I get home,'" Smith says, recalling his least favoritetask. "That motivated me to get off my butt as much as anything."

Smith's parents pushed him off the couch for good, demanding thathe work out in February 1995 for the Jaguars, who were preparingfor their inaugural season. Smith, who had resisted playing inCanada or Europe, wasn't keen about suiting up for an NFLexpansion team, either. But Etta and the elder Jimmy were swayedby the persistence of Jaguars director of pro personnel Ron Hill,who for two months placed daily calls to their house, and Jimmyagreed to participate in a crowded workout. The day before Jimmyleft for Jacksonville, Etta purchased a spiral-ring notebook. Shefilled it with articles and predraft newsletters that talked himup and wrote on the cover: All I Need Is a Chance.

Jimmy promised Etta he'd give the notebook to Coughlin, but whenhe walked into his first team meeting, he lost his nerve. "Islipped it to the receivers coach, Pete Carmichael, withoutanyone noticing," he says. "I don't think Tom Coughlin had a cluewho I was, so I think the binder was instrumental in the Jaguars'deciding to sign me."

During the '95 season Smith backed up Andre Rison, who gave himmuch needed encouragement. "He instilled in me the belief that Ican't be covered," says Smith. After Rison was cut 11 games intothe '96 season, Smith became a starter. He has since proved Risonright. He has played in three Pro Bowls and over the past fouryears leads the NFL in receiving yards (5,386) and is second inreceptions with 359, six fewer than the Oakland Raiders' TimBrown.

"Jimmy's a lot like [Minnesota Vikings All-Pro wideout] CrisCarter, because he can do so much," says McMillian, who finishedlast season with the Washington Redskins. "He has very deceptivespeed, and he has learned how to use his body and set updefensive backs." Smith has also evolved into a punishingblocker, twice clearing the path for touchdown runs in theJaguars' 62-7 playoff torture of the Miami Dolphins on Jan. 15,and has shown grit under fire. "There are players on that team wefeel we can intimidate, but Jimmy Smith has taken some of ourbest hits, and he doesn't complain," says Titans defensivecoordinator Gregg Williams. "The guy is always calm."

Well, not always. When he presses, those around him feel thestress. Sandra says Jimmy was cold and distant during the firstpart of the 1999 season. "That was when all the tension was goingon between Coughlin and Mark [Brunell], and our offense wasstruggling," Jimmy says. "I took on a lot of the burden to carrythe team, and she's right--I'd come home, get into bed and giveone-word answers."

On a recent visit to Dallas, the Smiths were far more animatedwhile sipping fruity drinks at a popular restaurant andrecounting their courtship. "The first time I saw her," saidJimmy, "she came out of the bank wearing a long sweater-dress.She looked great from behind, and she had a nice hairstyle, but Inever saw her face. I asked a friend to hook me up with heranyway. For all I knew she had acne all over."

"Oh, please," Sandra said sarcastically. "You're so romantic."

They laughed as their four-year-old son, Jimmy Lee III, ran up tothe table and hugged his father. Jimmy Jr. ducked to protect hisright eye, having undergone surgery on the eye several daysearlier to remove a cataract and to correct nearsightedness. "Ibasically played the season with one eye, but I didn't tellanyone--not even Sandra," he says. "I figure I dropped about 12passes last year, and my vision might have been responsible forsix of them. Now that I can see again, I should be that muchbetter."

He makes it sound easy.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFFERY A. SALTER/SABA HEARTWARMING Smith, in his backyard in Jacksonville, found happiness with the Jaguars after a star-crossed start with the Cowboys.COLOR PHOTO: BOB ROSATO INCOMPLETE FEELING Smith hauled in this pass in the playoff loss to the Titans but also dropped two balls and misjudged another.

Prepared by his mom, the spiral-ring binder that sang hispraises was, Jimmy says, "instrumental in the Jaguars' decidingto sign em."